Ghost
by RowenaMatthewJones
Summary: There was a reason America never cleaned out his storage room, there was a reason he was afraid of halloween, horror movies, and shadows. In fact, there was a very good reason, he could see ghosts. Now granted, most of them had never done any lasting physical harm, but mental and emotional were another story entirely.


There was a reason America never cleaned out his storage room, there was a reason he was afraid of halloween, horror movies, and shadows. In fact, there was a very good reason, he could see ghosts. Now granted, most of them had never done any lasting physical harm, but mental and emotional were another story entirely.

He had a house in Massachusetts, near Salem. It was huge; vaulted ceilings, gigantic fireplaces, and acres upon acres of woods. But it was empty. America the materialist, America the greedy, America the idiot had a mansion with nothing in it. It sat in the middle of a forest, no road led to it, just a trail. One that America walked once every year. On the old trodden path of centuries gone. They were what guided him to this empty dream.

There is one notion that many people ignore entirely, but that, when brought to light, staggers the senses. The world is connected. If you stop and think, really think, concentrate, you realize that if you wanted to, there would be a road to drive on from the tip of Canada to Chile, or from the East Coast of China to Portugal. There is nowhere to be single, solitary, alone. Everywhere we go, the footsteps of our past echo behind us. We can never escape our shadow, and we can never run from the echo of the steps that brought us to where we are now. In a way it is terrifying. We cannot flee those actions which we want so desperately to forget, heartbreak, betrayal, guilt. They are all just a half step behind us, waiting for us to fall, to trip, to stumble and then plunge into the pitfall of their sodden paths. For some, the memories of guilt and heartbreak are too much to bear. The singleness of those moments of pain and sin and of those emotions are too strong to break free from.

And so it was with him. He was cursed in a way that no one could bear. The memories that followed him were not in his mind, they were embodied. Always at his heels. He had an old pilgrim woman, the first human he had called mother. There was a child dancing with a blue flower, and a small dog traipsing along eagerly. There was a boy, a man perhaps, dressed in grey with a bullet wound in his head, and a woman, a blonde woman, with an oh so familiar smile and a brown leather pilot jacket. But worst of all, there were the soldiers, all the boys who had never gone home. Vietnam, France, Germany, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, even...home. The trail of spirits followed him wherever he went. They never spoke, not once, they were completely and utterly silent, just staring at him. He had begged them to go away, pleaded that they leave him alone. He had tried exorcisms, prayer, voodoo, everything he could think of. But to no avail, they continued to stare at him with blank faces.

Bur, there was one place he could find peace. The big, old, empty mansion in the middle of the forest in Salem. He approached the huge vine-covered front door with caution, almost hesitation; but with a moment's thought, he took a breath and stepped into the long empty hallway. Open doors lined the corridor, each room sending him the whispers of an old forgotten life. The floorboards creaked, and the dead leaves strewn on the ground crackled under his feet like fire. At the very end of the passage, there was a door. Magnificent, old, and painted with peeling white paint. He stopped a moment, turned the brass doorknob, and stepped into the room. It had once been painted a dark green, but the old color had long since worn off into a decrepit and dusty hue. Huge, nearly floor to ceiling windows faced west, catching the orange light of the setting sun, and filtering it into the room. Dust hung in the air. It was beautiful, but tense. Someplace between chaos and tranquillity. It was as if the peace seemed to hide something terrible. By the center window was the only piece of furniture in the room. A chair. And for a moment, he stood by the door, with his eyes closed, enjoying the peace.

For a moment, everything was quiet, no ghosts staring at him with their deafening silence, no world shouting at him for what he had done wrong, and most of all, he was alone. This house had always been his nightmare, his guilt, and his peace. He had often wondered what was so special about it. No...perhaps wondered was not the right word. He knew what made this house special, it was why he was here, though he did not admit it. It was the only place he could see her.

He sat. The chair was old, oak wood, strong and tough, built to last. He had made it himself for her. A memory flashed across his mind, of a small blonde boy carrying the brand new chair he had made for his mother. The house in his dream was only a log cabin then, his mother, a fading memory, it had been before England. When he had mingled with the strangers that looked like him. More and more he had left his mother, his mother's people. His smiling dark haired, red skinned mother. Redskin, that is what he had called her, as if color had ever mattered. He loved green grass, blue sky, yellow sun, but he always made the mistake with people. Black, red, yellow, white they should have all been the same, a color, merely a beautiful insignificant difference. But he made it his business to judge the importance of those colors as superior to what was inside. He judged people on the color of their skin not the content of their character. And he let his own people kill off and drive off and enslave those who were he deemed inferior.

The last time he had seen her was in 1839, the trail of tears. He had been all grown up, believed he knew everything there was to know about the world, about himself. But then he had seen his beautiful mother bent with age and weariness marching along with her people. She looked at him, and looked away. And his heart broke a little, but he turned to the side and galloped off. His destiny was more important than her.

It was after that encounter the ghosts started to accumulate, there had always been one or two, now there were hundreds that flickered in and out, trailing behind him. They haunted him, and now, ironically, he ran to what he was afraid of. The empty house, in the forest where he had grown up with his mother, with the chair that he had given her, in a better time, in innocence. That time was over, and now it was here that he waited for her ghost each year, and each year he begged her forgiveness.

Indeed here she was. Long black hair, piercing dark eyes, high cheekbones, and beautiful red skin; proud, tall, strong. Alfred put his head in his hands and seemed to melt into his chair. Tears slipped down his face, and he begged her for forgiveness. For her to pardon him for his prejudice. Each time, every time, she stared straight ahead, never looking at him. And each time, her eyes held sorrow, held pity. But this time was different. This time she stood beside him, and his blue eyes looked up at her black ones, wrent with such sorrow and guilt and pain. She saw it all and leaned down to his ear and whispered, "my dear, you always were forgiven, now you just need to change."

" _In a world so full of hate, her gift was so divine, she saw the great in the lowly, she saw the smallest thing a sign. In her eyes the world had beauty, in her mind she saw the dance, of a world fraught with trials, but a world with a chance." - Agnes Brown_

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